Maps To Anywhere

Maps to Anywhere written by Bernard Cooper is full of essays and does not have a clear pattern. After reading this book I researched about what the moral of the book is, the results showed that, "The essays explore the contrast between idealism of a 1950s childhood and the disillusionment of family members struggling with medical issues, sexuality, and disappointment" (CNF, 2012). these topics were not very apparent to me when reading these essays. I noticed him focusing on specific objects, for example the essay obsessing about potatoes; many of these essays seem random and pure fiction.

He also writes about his past memories, mostly sad and melancholy stories at some parts but then he will go off randomly talking about potatoes. I don't see a lot of correlation when reading them back to back, when writing a book I think that the fiction stories should have an obvious topic throughout the stories. His sentence structures are typically longer than usual with multiple commas; this makes it difficult to read through smoothly and articulate the large diction at the same time.

I love the essay "How to Draw" because of the attention getter. When trying to catch an audiences' eye you must have a great first line to your book; we're all humans and we judge quickly. During my fiction packet I worked on editing my first two lines of every story to make them more interesting. Although I typically am not a fan of Cooper's long sentence structures separated with commas and deep breaths but "How to Draw" is unique, "I'm going to demonstrate how to draw, but first let me say that despite several years of a fine arts education, including extensive classes on the history of world art (with an emphasis on contemporary American art), and after learning all I possibly could about the human impulse to make images- from horses on the walls in the caves at Lascaux to the patterns dug in the possess, against every cultivated judgement which came with my master's degree, a fondness for amateur art" (Page 31). This sentence is genius; Cooper establishes his credibility by sharing his education in such an efficient way and then sharing his pleasure for amateur arts.